COLORADO VOTING: A conservative legal group claims that ACORN and its affiliate successfully pressured Colorado officials to implement new policies for public assistance recipients, leading to a percentage of invalid voter registrations four times the national average. Judicial Watch on Complete Colorado.

SCHOOL FIGHT: A judge expects to rule next week on a lawsuit aimed at stopping Douglas County School District’s voucher program. The Denver Post.

WHERE’S THE BEEF? Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet are urging federal agriculture and trade officials to keep the pressure on China and Japan to get those countries to relax their barriers to importing U.S. beef. Longmont Times-Call.

ABORTION PROTEST: For the second year, anti-abortion protesters gathered at Mercy Regional Medical Center to oppose its relationship with local doctor who performs abortions. The Durango Herald.

IT’S A SECRET: Rules that keep meetings of elected boards open to the public don’t guarantee that the public has a right to know how those seated officials vote, according to a state Court of Appeals ruling released Thursday. The Denver Post.

PRIVATE EYES: A year after the idea died in the legislature, Gov. John Hickenlooper is revisiting a proposal to privatize Pinnacol Assurance, the state-chartered workers’-compensation insurance fund that has been embroiled in controversy over its executives’ pay and perks. The Denver Post.

MAKE A WISH: Douglas County turns 150 this week. All those years, and it still can’t find many Democrats. 9News.

WHAT AN ASS: Momentum is building to designate pack burro racing as the official sport of Colorado, The Wall Street Journal reports in the Denver Business Journal.

ACORN is like a herpes virus. It seemingly disappears but doesn’t go away, then it resurfaces to do it’s damage.

epl

What’s the damage? Notwithstanding the GOP’s attempts to conflate the two, voter registration fraud (which ACORN allegedly engages in) and voter fraud are not the same thing. Voter registration fraud presents no threat to democracy (conspicously absent from the very alarming sounding “report” of Judicial Watch Colorado is any discussion of any actual harm.). Perhaps rather than chase ghosts, Judicial Watch Colorado should tackle something that actually does threaten our democracy–the absurd notion of corporate citizenship and the way activist conservative judges are using it to give corporations unlimited spending rights in elections.

epl

What’s the damage? Notwithstanding the GOP’s attempts to conflate the two, voter registration fraud (which ACORN allegedly engages in) and voter fraud are not the same thing. Voter registration fraud presents no threat to democracy (conspicously absent from the very alarming sounding “report” of Judicial Watch Colorado is any discussion of any actual harm.). Perhaps rather than chase ghosts, Judicial Watch Colorado should tackle something that actually does threaten our democracy–the absurd notion of corporate citizenship and the way activist conservative judges are using it to give corporations unlimited spending rights in elections.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.